In the morning thousands of people head toward the center of the city. The resulting grid lock is innevitable.

Instead of a grid of streets that inevitably cause gridlock imagine a one way street spiral going into the center of the city ... at the center it submerges into a tunnel and heads out directly.

Emergency wehicles and busses could have shortcuts to the center of the city (under/overpasses). The nice side effect of the spiral would be that healthy people would relize that its quicker for them to park the car early on in the spiral and walk the couple of blocks to their office rather than going round and round only to find parking full. Trucks, disabled people, or lazy people who are not in a rush would finish the journey traveling slighly longer distance but with the knowledge that they can depend on getting there on time without all the stress and beeping - no traffic lights.

The direction of the one way street is up for debate. Other possibility is oposing spiral heading out.
-- ixnaum, Nov 07 2005

// at the center it submerges into a tunnel and heads out directly. //
Cool idea, except -- what exactly happens at the black hole in the center?
-- phundug, Nov 07 2005


And in traffic news - there's been another pileup in the centre of the Earth.
-- moomintroll, Nov 07 2005


Thinking this should be "Traffic Death Spiral."
-- DrCurry, Nov 07 2005


ok I should have been more clear.

When you reach the end of the spiral you see a tunnel. This tunnel goes underneath the spiral back out of the city.

Another alternative is that once you get to the end of the spiral there is a U-turn and you simply head back out in the opposite direction (2 way spiral)

I'm not sure which one is a better choice.
-- ixnaum, Nov 07 2005


I thought this said "Traffic Spital", which presumably would be a competition to see who could gob out car shaped sputum - I know it's vile, but I can't help it - moomintrol just proposed to me and I'm in a state of shock.
-- xenzag, Nov 07 2005


will your city also give out free government subsidized Dramamine or is there going to be an extended shoulder with "puke stations" along the way for those who lack the physical fortitude to keep driving down a perpetual curve without tossing cookies?
-- scott_r_uber, Nov 08 2005


I never thought a tight spiral would be the first thing you guys thought of... I meant a spiral with quite a wide diameter decreasing to one block size in the center.

In fact it could be made out of existing city blocks ... just guide the traffic round and round (no puking involved at all) turns are very shallow or very infrequent depending how it ends up looking
-- ixnaum, Nov 08 2005


do the cars get smaller and smaller as they spiral towards the centre, but never actually reach it, in a variation of the logic of Zeno's arrow? I feel myself drawn to this idea - traffic vortex-
-- xenzag, Nov 08 2005



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